Spotify

- 12 tracks had +3M streams- 24 songs had +2M streams- 1.45M streams needed to be inside the WW Top 50- 76 songs had +1M streams - You need +800k just to break into the Top 100- 192 songs had more than 500k streams- You need +485k to enter inside the WW Top 200

Although I mostly use Apple Music I'm extremely glad streaming is growing so much and saving the industry. I know that 2016's numbers where really promising in the last IFPI global report, but I genuinely can't wait to see 2017 numbers next year

The news comes just as the streaming service today announced it has 140 million active users.

Spotify losses more than doubled in 2016 to 556.7 million euros ($581.4 million) on revenues of 2.933 euros ($3.064 billion) from the 230.9 million ($241.6 million) in red ink tallied in the prior year, when sales, restated, were $1.93 billion ($2.014 billion), according to the streaming service's annual financial report.

While Spotify losses are mounting, it's important to note that Spotify's revenue increased by 52.1 percent. Within the red ink, the company's operating loss increased 47.8 percent to 349.4 million euros ($412.3) from the 236.3 million ($246.8 million) operating loss reported in the prior year.

The news comes just as the streaming service today announced it has 140 million active users of which more than 50 million are paid subscribers, according to numbers the platform released last March.

Other key takeaways in today's yearly report include an increase in premium revenue of 52% and an increase in ad revenues of 50%. The report also noted Spotify had raised $1 billion from institutional investors; will pay out a minimum guarantee of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in royalty payments over the next two years following multi-year licensing agreements with "certain" labels and publishers; and the service's launched in Japan, the second largest music market.

Read more: Spotify Officially Hits 50 Million Paid Subscribers

One of the key components of the wider net loss was a non-cash charge of 336.6 million euros ($351.5 million) in financing costs due to fair value movements on the $1 billion in convertible debentures it issued in March last year; as compared to the prior year when that expense only totaled 26.2 million euros. Also, the company lost 13.3 million euros ($13.9 million) on foreign currency exchange translation, versus last year when it was almost a wash.

The restatement for Spotify's financials for 2015 (and 2014) was due to errors in previous years. Consequently, 2015's revenue of 1.928 billion euros was restated from 1.945 billion euros ($2.03 billion), but the bigger adjustment was the widened operating loss to 236.3 million euros in 2015 from the previously stated 184.5 million euros ($192.7 million), which resulted in the net loss growing to 231 million euros from 173 million euros ($180.7 million).

As part of its results, Spotify stated that it has guaranteed payments to rights owners of about 2 billion euros ($2.09 billion) for royalty payments over the next two years.

Overall its revenue from its paid subscription model total 2.64 billion euros ($2.76 billion), while ad-supported revenue grew to 295 million euros ($308.1 million). That means that the paid subscription model grew at a rate of 52 percent from the prior year, while ad-supported revenue grew by 50 percent. Paid subscribers increased to 48 million from 28 million, while overall users increased to 126 million from 91 million. (On Wednesday, Spotify announced that that total user figure is now at 140 million.)

Breaking out revenue another way, the U.S. accounted for 1.167 billion euros ($1.22 billion), up 58.2 percent from 737.06 million euros ($770.4 million) in the prior year. Meanwhile, Spotify's U.K. operation grew 27.5 percent to 339.9 million euros ($355 million) from 266.5 million euros $278.3 million); Sweden grew to 201.6 million euros ($210.6 million) from 181.6 million euros ($189.7 million), and the rest of the world grew 64.9 percent to 1.226 billion euros ($1.28 billion) from 743.4 million euros ($767 million).

Looking at that another way, the U.S. accounted for 39.8 percent of revenue in 2016 for the company, while the U.K. was 11.6 percent of revenue; Sweden, 6.9 percent; and the rest of the world 41.8 percent. That compares with the prior year when the U.S. was 38.2 percent of revenue; Sweden was 13.8 percent; and the rest of the world was 38.5 percent.

The company says cost of revenue totaled $1.28 billion euros, which is 84.6 percent of overall revenue. While they say the cost of revenue primarily consists of royalty and distribution costs, it looks like they are including almost another 15 percent of total revenue in there, if you consider that the interactive, on-demand streaming model offers typical payouts content costs of 70 percent-72.5 percent. So in addition to royalties to rights holders, Spotify also includes things like customer service costs, credit card and payment processing fees for subscription, and salaries of certain employees.

Consequently, Spotify actually hides how much they pay out to content owners, unlike, say, Pandora which accounts for cost of revenue in a similar manner, but then further breaks out the actual cost of content paid to rights owners. In another unusual move, unlike most companies that release financial results, Spotify doesn't make them available on its website and doesn't issue a press release on them.

Moving over to Spotify's balance sheet, the company now carries a negative net worth of 242.4 million euros ($242.4 million), versus a positive net worth of 227.9 million ($238 million) last year. Cash grew to 755 million euros ($788.5 million) from 597 million euros ($623 million); and it also reported short-term investments of 830.3 million euros ($867.2 million), likely including the proceeds from the capital it raised in the bond offering.

According to its financial statements, Spotify continues to get more generous in paying wages and other benefits, including stock-based payments, to its employees as time goes by. Last year, the cost per employee grew to an average of 172,000 euros ($180,000) per employee annually, versus the 164,000 Euros ($171,000) on average it paid to employees in 2015. And that's up from the 133,000 euros ($139,000) in averages wages and benefits paid to employees in 2014. Within that, the average annual salary in 2016 was 107,000 euros ($112,000), up from 103,000 euros ($108,000) ; and 84,000 euros ($88,000) paid in 2014.

Many companies start losing money before they actually earn money. Nowadays, success (like Wall Street) is not based on the day-to-day incomes but in future projections. Spotify is growing like crazy, at this pace they know they'll have multiplied their incomes by 2020, so they are receiving funds from private firms to sustain their finances until they are solvent.

Also, don't forget that major labels* have a lot of shares because they know Spotify's incomes are going through the roof

"The record labels are: Sony BMG (5,8 percent), Universal Music (4,8 percent), Warner Music (3,8 percent) and EMI (1,9 percent). Also Merlin holds a small stake."

"In March 2016, Spotify raised $1 billion in financing by debt plus a discount of 20% on shares once the initial public offering (IPO) of shares takes place. The company was, according to TechCrunch, planning to launch on the stock market in 2017, but is instead planning on doing the IPO in 2018 in order to "build up a better balance sheet and work on shifting its business model to improve its margins"

KokoCollino wrote:The majors Sony and BMG parted ways many years ago. BMG is now independent and has a distribution deal with Warner Music.

Sony Music fully acquired BMG Bertelsmann and subsequently phased out the brand, logo, etc. (like BMG Classics was re-branded as Sony Masterworks).The "new" BMG was created to cater for music publishing recording rights and has evolved to a bigger independent label and has last bought Broken Bow Records Music Group (2nd biggest independent Country label).The distribution varies from territory to territory and also includes Sony (via Provident Label Group for Christian Music, for example) and direct BMG signings are distributed by BMG themselves in some territories; and Broken Bow is distributed by BBMG in the US (Jason Aldean, etc.) These are all examples (not exhaustive) and there is no single exclusive world-wide distribution deal.

"BMG’s catalogue will be distributed across the world via Warner’s independent label services division, ADA.

ADA will also issue frontline releases from BMG across the globe, although there will be some exceptions – selected releases will go through Sony Music internationally, in addition to [PIAS] (ex-US), Absolute Label Services (UK), and GoodToGo (Continental Europe)."

We can conclude then, that major labels and Merlin (a global digital rights agency for the world's independent label sector) own around 18% of the company's stocks. I couldn't find the individual % after the acquisitions, bankruptcies and mergers; it would be awesome If some of you could share some light on this topic.

BMG also has a deal with Netflix.They did a great job with distribution of Janet's '"Unbreakable" (Rhythm Nation Records). I was afraid that it will be hard to find it in this part of the world, the Balkans, since that there are only few record stores here, but I found both versions in all countries and each store I visited. It was easier to find "Unbreakable" than "Discipline". I really didn't expect that.

I noticed that album was distributed by Columbia in Japan. So I guess that they are not operating there?

Janet • She is literally, every artist's favorite artist. She is forever trending. We are living in a Janet Nation. Every day we feel her impact.

The BMG comment was simply intended to show how intricate the interdependence in the music business is. BMG is not the topic here; so we should call it a day (Last word: BBMG will still be distributed by Sony outside of the US as long as the existing contracts are in vigour)//Spotify is a private company and it does not disclose any details; and since it's not quoted at a Stock Exchange some required cornerstones are not made public by law.The suggested music business involvement of 18% seems to be too low IMHO. Usually, these customer/supplier, accounts receivable/payable, debtor/creditor unholy alliances where one side feeds and leeches the developing brood at the same time, are always suspect. Bottom line is that the record companies get the lion's (dinosaur's) share of all revenues and should stop complaining.//On a personal noteThe Spotify model is antiquated: Revenue payable divided by total streams times one specific song is clicked = sum of money that goes to the record company. (Also 31 (30:001) seconds representing one stream is ridiculous; at least 51% or 2 minutes of one song should be the threshold).Better model would be specific customer generated revenue payable according to each individual streaming behaviour. Meaning, if I listen to independent music and my streaming activity is according to median general public's consumption habits, then my $9.99 (minus overhead) should go to those label's artists I listened to and not meant to subsidise artists on playlists or genres and demographics that inflate the streaming totals out of median proportion.If I was sure that my music consumption would support exactly the artists I stream, then I would be even acceptable to pay more for a subscription.I'm thinking of moving to Deezer as they seem to have a different approach. (Still have to be certain of their business model [Why is it so hard to get these kind of information, anyway?] and be sure that they carry my preferred genres and artists.(Sorry for the lengthy text and rant)

"Through the first six months of 2017, Spotify and Apple Music have grown their combined total U.S. streams by 60%. When this week ends, the two leading streaming services will have delivered about 160 billion individual song streams, compared with 100 billion through the same period last year.

That's over 105m album equivalents (SEA), or an increase of 40 million. With total album sales down by 18m YTD and track sales down by 94m (9.4 million TEA), streaming has given the industry a YTD increase of more than 12m SEA.

Leading music execs will be celebrating by ordering Swedish meatballs on their iPhones."

Sources at Spotify confirm that the streamery has passed the 60m subscriber mark, further evidence of the streaming boom hitting critical mass and the new windfall for the music industry. Spotify's nearest rival, Apple Music, enjoys about 30m, but both services—and up-and-comer Amazon Music—are showing strong growth.

The information comes as Daniel Ek's company gears up for public trading, either as a direct listing or via a long-anticipated IPO.

To celebrate, the company is grooving to a playlist of chill music by imaginary Swedish bands.

Merlin, the global digital rights agency for the independent label sector, recently announced that royalty payments to its 700-plus members for audio streaming hit $353 million for the 12 months ending March 2017 -- a 52 percent jump over the previous year. The numbers reflect the streaming boom shaping the music business overall.

Under CEO Charles Caldas, Merlin represents indies that account for over 12 percent of the global digital recorded-music market. In April, Merlin announced a new multiyear global licensing agreement with Spotify. It now has partnerships in place with 20 digital music services.